§ SIR WILLIAM VERNERsaid, he had obtained permission to ask the noble Lord the Member for the City of London a question in that House with reference to a matter that had been noticed in the public journals. A sermon had been preached in a Roman Catholic Church in Dublin—the Church of the Conception—a short time since, on occasion of what was termed the "commemoration" of the late Archbishop Murray, and the preacher was reported to have stated that the deceased prelate had been solicited by the Government of the day to accept the honour of a seat at Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, as the reward of his unblemished life and his high reputation for wisdom, but that he had declined the honour. He wished now to ask the noble Lord the Member for London, whether he was aware of any such offer having been made by the late Government?
§ LORD JOHN RUSSELLSir, I can have no hesitation in saying that the fact referred to by the Rev. Gentleman in Dublin, and now repeated here by the hon. Baronet the Member for the County of Armagh, is substantially correct. I should not certainly use the word "solicited;" but it is a fact, that during the Lord Lieutenancy of the Earl of Bessborough it was proposed to Archbishop Murray to take a seat at Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, and that the Archbishop declined to accept that distinction. I can only add, that it gave me great satisfaction to make that proposal, and that I very much regret that it was not accepted by a prelate whose character I esteemed, and whose memory I venerate.